Burnt on the Edges but Fried Inside
by xxCerezasxx
Summary: AU of pre-series events. The Winchester line dwindles down to two. Or, John learns even a hunter can't always protect his family. Warnings: character death. Gen.


**Rating:PG-13  
Disclaimer:Don't own  
Warning: Character death**

**Burnt on the Edges but Fried Inside**

John's reading up on chupacabra lore when Sammy tugs on the leg of his jeans, slaps his little warm hands on John's knees to get his attention.

"I'm hungry." Sammy's getting so big now; it's startling how fast kids can grow, how short childhood can really be. Sam'll start losing that baby softness to his face soon enough and he'll fit awkward in John's lap those rare times he goes to John for comfort instead of Dean. "Food." Sammy says, more urgent this time, trying his hardest to pull John out of the chair and into the kitchen area. The motel room is one of the more expensive ones but John picked it for convenience. It's got a wall that mostly divides the room into two spaces, so the boys can watch TV while he works, and so they have a way to eat while he's gone.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, dad?" Dean always comes when he calls, always does what John tells him. Sometimes John thinks that's what he likes best about Dean, his dedication to the family, and really, it's frightening how damn _good_ Dean is. There are days John feels like he's taking something away from Dean, that he's made him grow up too fast, become a parent when he's a baby himself.

"Sam's hungry, you should go make dinner." He'd do it himself but there are forty-seven dead chickens and goats that are on his mind, one toddler sucked suspiciously dry. He'll cook for the kids tomorrow before he heads out for Texas.

"Okay." Dean's never said no to him, never complained. It could be refreshing for Dean to throw a tantrum for once, the way Sam does when he doesn't want to go to bed or get in the car.

"I want toast."

"Toast isn't dinner food, Sammy. You're having Mac and Cheese." He wonders how Dean got so good at taking care of Sam. Dean talks to Sammy like Mary would, like Mary used to.

"I want toast!" Sam's gotten into the habit of stamping when he's angry. If he doesn't get what he wants the second time he asks for it he throws himself onto the ground and screams.

"You can have a _piece_." Dean lets Sammy take him by the hand and pull him into the kitchen as he talks on and on about exactly what he wants on his piece of toast and how he wants it served.

The chupacabra was first identified in Puerto Rico; afterwards it started popping up in Central and South America before it finally made its way to the states. The lore all says they aren't dangerous unless you're livestock, but there's a dead four year old in El Paso who's had his organs sucked out through his neck who begs to differ. There isn't a definite way to kill them, which means pretty much any method is gonna work and a gun should more than do the trick.

"Dad." Sammy's back and he's visibly upset, a few seconds away from crying, those big, fat almost tears in his eyes. "Dean…" Sam pauses and sucks in snot, his lip trembling. "Dean fell 'sleep and I'm too liddle to get the toast out."

"Go wake Dean up, I don't want the pan boiling dry again." Dean made that mistake once, ruined a pot and scared the shit out of himself and his brother. "He'll get you your toast." Maybe he's expecting too much of Dean. Dean's up in the morning before he is, eating cereal with Sam in front of the TV. Dean does more work in a day than most genuine mothers.

"Dean, get up." He can hear Sam talking; hear the irritation in his voice. "Dean." There's the distinct sound of Sammy slapping Dean's face. "Stop petending Dean." That has him up, has him furious. He asked Dean to feed his brother, not play around. "Dean."

The smell gets him first. The bread in the toaster is burnt to a crisp, charred black, and the air is filled with that burned over scent that reminds him of blazing beams and salted over corpses crackling with flames in the night. He swallows down his anger because Dean's done so much these past few days and decides he'll tell Sammy to tickle Dean's stomach to get him to stop messing around. Something dark grows in his gut, a general uneasiness, the suspicion that comes after he's lost track of a hunt, moving on instinct and guess rather than fact. Dean's flat on his back on the floor, eyes wide open, and when Sam shakes him all Dean's head does is loll, lifeless and heavy as a ball rolling in the wind. "Make him wake up." Sam huffs, crossing his arms, face flushed red and frustrated.

"Dean?" Dean's eyes are glazed over bright but there's nothing behind them, like light shone on the surface of glass, a marble when it's held up to the sun. "Dean!" Dean's chest isn't moving and all he can think as he pries his son's mouth open and blows into it is _not Mary's son_. Dean takes in the air and his chest rises once and falls, repeats the motion with each new breath John gives him. It doesn't work and despite the breaths and chest compressions Dean gets colder. The ambulance he calls can't come fast enough as he works hard as he's ever worked to keep Dean's little heart beating. There's sweat at his temples and his arms are shaking while Sammy watches frightened and cries.

"Are they gonna wake Dean up?" Sam calms down in the ambulance, mesmerized by the flashing lights and tubes, the paddles they use to shock his brother's chest. Sam keeps a hand curled in the front of John's shirt, and John just doesn't _know_. This is something he can't control, something he can't hunt down. There isn't a body he can burn to make it go away, nothing he can pump full of iron or salt or silver. This is his oldest son strapped to a stretcher while paramedics squeeze a bag to force air into his lungs. This is Dean _dying _or dead and there's no hunt or monster that can prepare him for this. "Dad, are they gonna?" Sammy asks and asks, bored and drowsy in the ER waiting room, uncomfortable in John's arms because he always sits in Dean's.

"Mr. Winchester?" A young nurse in purple scrubs comes out to greet him. "I'm nurse Mejía, the doctor is going to be out in a few minutes, so I thought I'd take Sam down to the cafeteria while you two talk." The nurse has a pleasantness to her face, a cheerful rounding of her cheeks, and her hips and thighs are solid and strong looking. She makes him think of Mary for some reason, despite the extra twenty-five pounds and two inches she's got on Mary. It's in her eyes, the way she looks at Sammy, a motherly expression he's only seen in Mary and Dean. "Would you like to come with me and get something to eat Sam?"

"Can I have toast?"

"We don't usually serve breakfast food this late, but I think I can get you a piece of toast if we ask someone real nicely." Sam perks right up and John wishes it could be that easy, that they could perk right up from this, that Dean will come walking out holding the doctor's hand, looking around for his brother. John sits with his elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, counting the lines in the linoleum, the weight of anticipation crushing him from the inside out.

"Mr. Winchester?" The doctor doesn't look like he's a day out of medical school, too young and inexperienced, a neatly pressed red tie and blue button up shirt on beneath his white coat. The doctor has a _look_ on his face and it's the look John saw when his mother passed, when the firemen told him there was nothing of Mary left to find. "I'm sorry, but there was nothing we could do. Your other son told one of the nurses what happened, a shock like that is too much trauma for someone Dean's size." He sees Dean on the kitchen floor once more, fork clutched in his hand that was clenched tight, fingers curled and locked like a person with arthritis. He never warned Dean and he should of, because that's the kind of thing a parent is supposed to do. Right and wrong and when not to stick a fucking fork in a plugged in toaster, that was his job, not just hunting the things in the dark. He thought Dean knew, was so sure of it he'd never bothered to ask. "Would you like me to get Nurse Mejía to bring Sam back?" Oh god _Sammy_. He doesn't have a clue what he's going to tell him, doesn't know if Sam is old enough to even understand the concept of death.

"No." He says when he can speak without a break in his voice; muster up the strength to talk like he isn't dying. "I want you to take me to see my son."

Dean has a tube sticking out of his mouth but his eyes are closed now and his lips are tinged with blue that stands out against the stark paleness of his skin. They cut Dean's shirt away and he looks tiny here, pale and half naked. John touches his boy and Dean has a warmth to him that's betraying, that says maybe he's alive. John touches the softness of his son's hair and the freckles on the bridge of his nose and cries like he hasn't in years, like he never will again, because he'll never let anything bad happen after this. Most of his family is gone but he'll keep Sammy safe.

* * *

"When is Dean coming back?" Sam pipes up from bed, crawling in close to John, tucking his head beneath John's chin. John's told him seven times already and each explanation is as effective as the one before it. Sam gets quite and ten minutes later asks when his brother is going to come back.

They bury Dean on a Friday, in the little section of land right beside Mary's grave, in the Campbell family plot. As the achingly small coffin is lowered into the dirt, Sam's questions turn frantic until he's pleading and screaming and straining for the coffin and begging for Dean to come _back_.

He calls Missouri that evening. She's the first contact in his journal, the one who is gonna know. There's a way to get Dean back and he knows it. There's no reason for this much darkness and evil to be in the world if there isn't a speck of good to balance it out. Missouri doesn't have a name to give him, says even if she did she wouldn't because sometimes dead is better, and that Dean is finally with the angels who have been watching him since his birth.

John tells her he never much believed in angels to begin with and slams the phone down onto its hook.

* * *

Life goes on. He keeps a picture of Dean in his wallet along with the only one they have of Mary. Sam sits up front in the Impala and gives John an amulet the Christmas they spend at Bobby's. Sam gets tall and John gets old and Dean is more real to Sam than his mother ever was but there's no avenging Dean's death, so they focus all their energy on the thing that started this all. They go after the creature that is the underlying reason a seven year old died on a motel room floor in southern California.

Nineteen years after Dean's death, the demon possessing John talks about his special kid Sammy, household appliances, how to cover the stink of sulfur with burnt toast, and laughs and laughs before Sam puts one of the Colt's bullets right between John's newly yellow eyes.

* * *

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